A Talentless Mage Devours a Disaster-Class Future - Chapter 46

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 46

Everything had been predetermined.
From the conversation they’d shared not long after the matchup between the Cassius Kingdom and the Mark Kingdom was decided.

“Hmm… I’ve given some thought to our chances of victory….”
“S-so, what are our chances?”

Cassius smiled crookedly as he spoke.

“None. There’s no possibility of us defeating them.”
“…W-what…what do you mean?”

Cassius’s declaration was so shocking that Darren asked him to repeat it several times.

If that were true, then all their efforts now would be worthless, wouldn’t they?

“In the end, Gares is the problem. I can find no way to pierce through his Defensive Magic.”
“Not even with Aria’s magic? Not even with Aion’s?”
“Well….”

Cassius rested his chin on his hand, lost in thought for a moment, before answering Vera’s question.

“Aion’s magic, if anything… might actually be possible.”
“Then we’re good, aren’t we?”
“No. It’s not that simple. The only possibility lies in that particular flame-based magic. Breaking through Gares from a distance is next to impossible.”
“Then just do that. Let Aion—”

Cassius cut her off and raised one finger.

“First, a Knight cannot use Defensive Magic. So when he approaches to break through the Defensive Magic, we’d have to pour all our defensive power into protecting him.”
“…That won’t work?”
“Our defensive capacity doesn’t match the Mark Kingdom’s. We can’t hold out long. We’ll get only one chance, and if our strategy becomes obvious, defeat is already assured.”
“Ugh….”

Vera’s Teddy Bear trembled.

“Second, Aion cannot use Movement Magic. He’d have to cross the Bosco Plain on foot using his legs alone. How much bombardment he’d have to endure in the process….”
“That… sounds difficult.”
“Third, even if we break through the defense, if the enemy scatters or Gares survives, we’re stuck all the same.”

Unless the Cassius Kingdom could solve these three difficulties, they could not defeat the Mark Kingdom.

As the deliberation stretched on that day,
Cassius arrived at a single conclusion.

“We have no choice but to make Aion fall.”
“……What?”
“We choose descent. With this method, there’s no need for him to trudge across the plain. Gravity will do the work for us.”

That insane plan grew more concrete by the hour.

“Aion…. He’ll die?”
“It’s merely the death of an Avatar. What do you say, Aion? Actually, I don’t need your opinion. There’s no other way.”
“…Then, why did you ask?”
“What I was asking was whether you could pull it off. As you know, it’s a reckless gamble, but if we don’t take this course, there’s no way to break through Gares’s Defensive Magic….”
“I’ll do it.”

Aion Iscar.
He had lived through operations undertaken with the acceptance of death—countless times.

Operations where he had wagered not the life of an Avatar, but his own genuine life.

“I have to pull this off, don’t I?”
……

Cassius was silent for a moment, choosing his words carefully, before he spoke.

“…You’ll save the kingdom, Aion.”

***

That absurd operation was coming together piece by piece.

The plan to snipe Mark Kingdom’s Rook and draw the enemy into a dense formation.

The plan to restrict their vision with the Emperor’s Mantle while launching Aion skyward for a descent.

And the plan to sever sound itself, preventing them from responding immediately.

Remarkably, everything up to this point had gone exactly as planned.

‘…Having come this far, I’ll see it through.’

Now only Aion’s role remained.

Aion was plummeting motionless through the sky above the Bosco Plain.

Or rather, descending.
Camouflaged as one of the Teddy Bears.

Those who had never witnessed a mage’s battle often imagined it would be spectacularly flashy.

Searing infernos consuming the very air, bolts of lightning at impossible speeds scorching an opponent’s eyes.

Such terrible, sublime carnage.

Of course, battles between mages of high Realm sometimes did unfold that way.

But most engagements were nothing but tedious exchanges of offense and defense.

Spells adequate enough to check an opponent, spells adequate enough to repel theirs in turn.

Rarely did anyone commit their full power.

No mage wished to be injured or killed.

They did not want to find themselves in an unstable state where going all-out was necessary.

Yet very rarely.
Moments of clarity arrived.

Instants that could be called fleeting.
Moments where one had to pour everything into a single strike.

Mages called such a moment the Mage’s Time.

Time stretched as if multiplied severalfold, like a lantern spinning in the dark.

Countless inspirations clashed between mages, victory and defeat hung in balance, and life and death diverged in that singular moment.

Now, the Mage’s Time arrives.

8 seconds.

Gares’s cry reaches no one. Aria’s magic sees to that.

He didn’t know what Realm she’d attained, but erasing sound from the battlefield required only seconds.

If he waited for sound to find its place again before responding, he would surely be too late.

‘Please, anyone….’

Look up.
He’s coming.

He has to be up there.
They deceived us!

Despair seized Gares.
Yet perhaps heaven favored him after all.

His gaze crossed with someone else’s at precisely that moment.

Mark de Senell.

As if by fate itself.

Gares immediately pointed his finger toward the sky.

7 seconds.

Mark nodded.
The reason he’d glanced at Gares was no sudden flash of insight.

It was something closer to instinct.
When sound vanished and the whirlwind obscured even his vision, the flood of information feeding Mark’s awareness was cut off.

He had been forced to trust.
In the mage Gares.

Though he would never admit it to himself, this necessity became his fortune.

He sensed Aion’s presence faster than his enemy intended.

Faster than thought, he wielded his magic.

6 seconds.

Sting—

Twin stings strike the crowns of Cedric and Renar’s heads, their venom extracted. The work of the Nisht Twin Stinger Bee.

Both look up instinctively at the sky.

In this moment, the mages of the Mark Kingdom share a single purpose.

Interception.

Two knights prepare their magic.
Each is granted but a single opportunity.

Five seconds.

Every soldier in the Mark Kingdom has finished readying themselves to respond instantly to the slightest movement.

It will take a full three seconds to prepare magic potent enough to shatter the dome.

Which means a mana signature must appear by now.

The opponent can hide no longer.

Flick—

One of the many teddy bears flipped over.

‘There!’

The Nisht Twin Stinger Bee of the Mark Kingdom tore through the teddy bear.

What burst forth from the stuffing was a cascade of stones.

Vera’s magic had deceived them once more. Mark’s opportunity was spent.

Four seconds.

He has concealed his mana signature until the very last instant.

King Cassius must be enduring the backlash of his magic and cannot protect Aion.

He can only rely on his body to withstand it.

If only his Realm had been just a touch higher…

At the very least, he should have severed the right arm.

Aion, meanwhile,

‘…!!!!’

Waves of enormous pain began washing over him.

‘My pain threshold…’

This wasn’t normal. Not even close.
He felt as though his body were being severed, piece by piece.

And at that same instant, Renar’s flame magic arrived.

Flame Bolt.

It streaked straight toward Aion.

And then

…direct hit.

Two seconds.

The Teddy Bear caught fire, consuming itself in flame.

Mana-infused fire burned through its target far more rapidly than ordinary flame.

The bear’s synthetic fibers melted, fusing with flesh and bone in a gruesome amalgam.

His skin shriveled. His eyelids seared shut. Tears evaporated before they could fall.

The tissue beneath his skin began to boil.
Like fat rendering in a pan.

He wanted to scream. But if he opened his mouth, his lungs would burn.
Even as agony convulsed his face, he clamped his jaws shut by sheer force of will.

The stench of roasting flesh filled his nostrils.
The rank, sickening smell of burning human meat.
His ears roared. His vision bled red.

Something familiar. Something alien.

Death was coming.
Yes—perhaps letting go of consciousness would be kinder.

One second.

Aion slipped into oblivion.
His mind spiraled down an impossibly long tunnel, as though his memories were flickering past in reverse—a lantern show of dying light.

‘Why am I…? For what…? Why am I even here…?’

Giving up would have been the right choice.
Death stood at the threshold.

He wanted to stop trying.
He wanted to let it all go.

What was it all for? A handful of lectures at some magic academy.
Not the sort of action that demanded meaning or weight—just the bare mechanics of what needed doing.

A cause without stakes worth dying for, no great honor to be seized.

‘Then why….’

Why couldn’t he let it go?
Why didn’t he want to?

…It was unbearable.

Unbearably painful.
And unbearably, ridiculously trivial all at once.

How could that be?

How could I—

– Magic, doesn’t it thrill you?

A conversation at that Cabin, surfacing unbidden in his mind.
The elf mage had spoken as though she saw straight through everything.

— Perhaps you’ll understand soon enough.

Now, at last, he did understand.
The meaning of those words.

— Yourself.

‘I am….’

Light and color seep into a life that had been colorless.

A flame cradled close even as everything tore and burned.

In the torrent of anguish, he arrives at a sudden understanding.

Stubbornness, obsession, the hunger to win, duty, martyrdom.

These grand and noble things were not the reason Aion refused to surrender even at the threshold of death itself.

‘Magic….’

It fascinates me.
…Truly, magic fascinates me.

At last, Aion admits it.

He has been captivated by magic.
Magic… is thrilling.

His fist connects with the dome.

Screeeeeee—

Aria’s magic weakens, and the sound it had bound to the plain breaks free.

In the same instant, a fist stained crimson meets the golden barrier.

***

Gares found his voice at last.

“So you finally show your face!”

The moment fist met dome, someone who already seemed dead.

The tremendous shot that had come flying from the forest—surely this creature’s doing.

A nameless thing that had put him on edge.

Gares glared, desperate to see the face of this unknown enemy.

‘This creature…’

The identity that had remained a question all along.
And the moment its true nature was revealed, Gares’s entire body went rigid.

It was already dead the instant it touched the dome.
Yet even as its face melted in the inferno, it was unmistakably smiling.

“You… you damned monster…”

Screeeeeeeech—!!!

Meltdown.

A vast torrent of mana that Aion had never unleashed all at once before—transformed into pure heat, melting everything it touched.

『Aion Iscar’s Avatar has been destroyed.』

The backlash from that single blow shattered Aion’s Avatar that had been barely holding on,

and the heat he left behind completely collapsed the dome of the Mark Kingdom.

“Ah… no…”

Black, and blazing red.
The magma left by the demon.

In an instant, it transformed the plain into a furnace.

Whoooosh!

Sizzzzzzz…

“Ahhhhhhh…!”
“Ngghhhhhhh!”

Flesh and bone and reason dissolve. A final prayer swept away like driftwood in a tidal wave—helpless to resist or break free.

The legacy Aion Iscar left behind destroyed the Mark Kingdom.

『Gares’s Avatar has been destroyed.』
『Renar de Valois’s Avatar has been destroyed.』
『Cedric van Hustapon’s Avatar has been destroyed.』
『Mark de Senell’s Avatar has been destroyed.』
……

“The victor: Cassius Kingdom.”

The Talentless Mage Devours a Catastrophic Future — Episode 46

Author
Wang Mozhi
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yeon
Cover Design
Dali

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260706063.0046

ⓒ2026. Wang Mozhi

※ This e-book is protected under the copyright law of the Republic of Korea.
No part of this work may be reproduced, adapted, or modified in any form without the express permission of the author and publisher.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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